The city is headquarters of the European Union, and the term 'Brussels' is frequently used as a synonym for the EU and its tortuous bureaucracy. The Commission, Council and Parliament of the EU all meet in Brussels employing some 30,000 people which makes Brussels a target for more lobbyists than in Washington DC.

NATO is also headquartered in Brussels where approximately 4000 people work for the political structure of NATO.[3]

Brussels was home to the 1958 Worlds Fair for which the Atomium, a 103 meter tall building blown up 165 billion times which represents a unit cell of an iron crystal, was built.

Traditional New Year's Eve fireworks for 2007 in central Brussels were canceled due to a continuing terror threat in the Belgian capital.
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